Self Portrait at 26, from the Viewpoint of an External Observer

through darkness fallen in autumn's veldt of carpeted leaves
in nightfall's expanse of moonless shadow
is where we met our friend,
that half jack drunk on moonbeams and whiskey,
wearing a tattered general's coat and raven feathers
dancing a jig out in the field of starless dark
weathered by the silouhettes of white birches
stuck like picket fences
in a forlorn town.

time travel, jeez
and obsessions with the occult by campfire.
i would have had a glass of wine to share
but it seemed disingenuous
for he was already half mad and unkempt
staring at old designs of poison arrows
while I kept an old blunderbuss on my mantle,
wondering about it's gilt
as the old fool danced next door
shouting at the police
while patrolling the property for onlookers.

there was a sweet smile in his dark eyes though
set to some damage that had escaped his past
as though he had seen worlds in outer space
that had blossomed through his breast
like explosions
and I thought, well, if I were a lady
I would call to have him taken away
over vast hills of rolling green in Spring
where the notations of his philosphoies would break
admist all that foreign beauty,
gentle there like lakes
and not the crashings of asteroids
or the old worn musk of Civil Wars.

Instead I invited him over for tea
and he sat there in a chair
with kind eyes, he gave up a knife
and a leather strap
before I told that young fellow
that he was headed off to perdition
on the back of a stagecoach.

They came to take him away
the next day
though white corridors of hospitals
where he kicked some man in the face
but to me he seemed fine and sane
because I knew he never gambled,
but always chose the shortest paths
by my house,
wandering in circles around an old elm
that bursted with shade and sun
as though it were our emblem of Life's pratfall
and growth, roots burgeoning in gnarls of rivers
and let me tell you
that later I told the police
that he was not insane.